


Brief Encounter

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Series: One Night [6]
Category: Carol (2015), The House with a Clock in its Walls (2018)
Genre: F/F, Late Night Conversations, Road Trips, Stranded, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 05:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18732577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: In the middle of winter, Florence finds herself stranded in Detroit after a shopping trip to the city. Just as she gives up on the last bus home, a pale car glides out of the night like a ghost and a beautiful stranger offers her a lift.See beginning note.





	Brief Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> When I first had the idea that became One Night, I wrote five alternative openings. What eventually happened was something of a mish mash of four of them. This is the fifth. I had been considering doing something with it for a while, and then Win7Wil left a comment saying they believed Carol and Florence had had their brief encounter. In One Night, they hadn't, and Carol did indeed return. This, however, is their brief encounter. I hope you enjoy it.

The snow was coming down quite heavily now, and Florence drew her coat closer around herself, glad of the protection she had against the cold. She considered working a little magic to keep warm but decided against it for now. The bus was showing no sign of arriving, it was dark, and the bus station staff were starting to show signs of going home. She sighed, tapping her foot, then glanced around. Well. Getting home tonight was starting to look increasingly unlikely, so perhaps it was time to try to find a place to stay. She didn't like travelling much, and when things like this happened it only really cemented that. New Zebedee wasn't Paris, but it was home, and she didn't feel comfortable straying too far from home these days. 

The lights of a hotel caught her eye across the main street, and she decided to investigate further, hoping that they might have a room left - and that she had sufficient money in her purse to afford it. She went to step off the kerb, and a large, pale car rolled to a stop next to her. Florence stepped back onto the kerb, a little shaken but glad of the opportunity to keep her purple leather boots out of the slush a moment longer. 

The driver's window was rolled down, and an elegant woman with honey-blonde hair in perfect curls stuck her head out of the window. 

"Have you been caught by the bus strike?"

"Bus strike?"

"It's up route somewhere. The drivers are striking over conditions, threatening to unionise. I gather it's rather thrown things into chaos."

"Oh. Yes, that must be it. They didn't tell us anything, and I was rather hoping to get home tonight. I suppose my ticket's worthless now."

"Where are you going?"

"Oh... a small town in the middle of nowhere. New Zebedee."

"That's towards Chicago, right?"

"Yes..."

"I'm going that way anyway, but I suppose it's rather far to get all the way tonight."

"I think it's about an hour and a half..."

"That should do nicely. I suppose there are places to stay there?"

"Of course, there are. If there's no space I'd be happy to put you up for the night myself."

"Well, in that case we seem to have a mutually beneficial arrangement... please, hop in."

Florence blinked, but hurried around the back of the large car, pausing only to put her shopping in the trunk, and then around to the passenger door. She slipped in, glad of the warmth, and smiled at her rescuer. 

The woman held out a gloved hand, which Florence shook. 

"A pleasure to meet you, and thank you, again. My name is Florence Zimmermann."

"Delighted. I'm Carol."

As Florence shifted to get comfortable, removing her scarf in the warmth of the car, Carol put it neatly into gear and pulled away from the kerb. The road stretched out ahead of them, illuminated only as far as the glow of the headlights stretched, and the other woman's eyes were set out on the horizon. They drove on in silence, before she spoke again. 

"...So, what brought you into town? Shopping for the holidays?"

"Something like that. What about you? Are you going home for the holidays?"

"Oh, no..." Carol laughed briefly, but there was nothing harsh about it, only perhaps a little wistful, "No I'm going as far away from home as possible for the holidays. Things are... complicated. I'm sure I couldn't bore you."

"Well... it's a long drive, and there's an anonymity in confiding in a stranger?"

"Well that's true enough... I'm almost glad you were there, you know? I hate driving alone. It's not so bad at night, strangely enough, I think it's because everything feels so unreal. I don't like driving in the daylight, particularly with the snow on the ground. Everything seems to be thrown into such harsh relief. The night softens things. Don't get me wrong, I like the season, but..."

"Were you always planning to drive alone, in that case?"

"No. I... had hoped, perhaps, that a friend might be able to accompany me, but she demurred."

"I'm sorry to hear it, though I must admit in some selfish way I'm rather glad you had space in the car."

Carol glanced over and smiled. She really was beautiful, the way the curl of her hair emphasised the curve of her cheekbone, skin like a porcelain doll. The shadows suited her.

"Perhaps it's fate. Do you live alone?"

"As it so happens, yes, I do. I'm good friends with my neighbour but... I've lived alone ever since I came here."

"Oh? How fascinating. When was that?"

"After the war. I... came here. Ran here. Like so many others, I suppose. The lure of a new life without... ghosts looking over my shoulder."

"...We all have ghosts, but yours... must be hard to bear."

"I lost my husband. And my daughter. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it hardly matters. The camps swallowed up so many, and those of us it left to survive, well... I'm not sure really that it didn't kill us too, just with a slower acting poison. Part of me marvels at how fast things can change. There is an evil in people, a hunger, a numbness... there is good too, but it takes little for the evil to take over. The power of apathy, I suppose. Before the war I was in Paris, mostly. I knew Dali and Monet... but things change, seasons change, people wither and die."

"...I'm sorry."

There was a pause before the words, and Florence realised that Carol had been watching her. The road ahead was empty, there was nothing to fear on that score, but it was a surprise all the same. She was used to people turning away from pain. She had plenty of pain but there were few who could look her in the eye, as if they felt a second-hand shame from her willingness to admit it. Carol was not, for some reason, and that in itself was food for thought. 

Carol turned her eyes back to the road before she spoke again. 

"...Thank you for being willing to tell me. I think we can forget, in our cosy suburban lives, that the war touched many people in ways we will never understand. I am truly sorry for your loss. I have a daughter myself. She's four. I couldn't imagine losing her, except... that that is the prospect I am confronted with. My husband... ex-husband, almost... we had come to an agreement, but now he's changing his mind. He wants full custody. If he can't have me, I can't have my daughter. I'm not faced with the prospect of her dying, far from it, and I'm grateful for that, but it aches all the time like shards of glass in my chest every time I breathe."

"...I'm sorry. That is cruel of him. Does he have a reason? You don't need to tell me either way, and if there's one thing I understand it is that men so rarely need reasons to be cruel, but..."

"I'm... different. And I trusted him once with the secret of that, and now he's using it against me. Of course it's... well. Perhaps I gave him grounds for renewed suspicion, and perhaps... he might be justified in that, but I don't feel even then that he is justified in keeping my daughter from me."

"No, of course not."

Florence settled in her seat, watching out for road signs which might indicate how much further they had to go, although she was rather hoping this ride wouldn't come to an end anytime soon. This was... nice, somehow. Like being in an insulated bubble away from the rest of the world with someone else who understood a little of what it was like to be so lonely. 

"...Have you ever... it sounds ridiculous, I know, like those songs or those stories where eyes meet across a crowded room and love hits like a bolt from the blue... More than lust, I mean, some kind of... feeling of kinship?"

It seemed superficially to be unrelated to what they had been talking about, but somehow Florence suspected it wasn't that simple, and instead she waited, leaving the silence for Carol to continue to fill. 

"I was Christmas shopping. I wanted a present for my daughter, but I left it too long as always... I went to Frankenberg's, I don't know if you know it? A huge department store in Manhattan, but... it was the strangest thing. The shop girl behind the toy counter... we locked eyes, and from there... it might have been nothing, a passing infatuation, a dream, but I foolishly forgot my gloves there and she returned them to me by post. Again, I could have left it, but I so very much wanted to see her again, needed to see her again, to know her... it sounds foolish, I suppose, but... I offered to take her to lunch, as a thank you... and she came out to visit me, in New Jersey. I'm a long way from New Jersey now, of course. Harge, my husband... came home unexpectedly and found her there. He didn't catch us at anything, nothing... like that, nothing so sordid, but... I had a fling, once, with a dear friend. She's still a dear friend, she's Rindy's godmother, but I suppose that's what put the thought in his head and gave him something to hang a suit for full custody on, to torture me, to trap me... I think... he thinks we didn't try hard enough, that if he can find a way to make me stay and some magic words to make it all better... that we'll go back to loving each other. I think we're long past that. There are some things that cannot be undone, and trying to take Rindy from me... any fondness for him I had left is gone."

"I am truly sorry. This girl... is she the one you had hoped might come with you?"

Carol glanced over, the smile resting on her lips now wistful, sad somehow at the corners before she looked back at the road. 

"...Yes. She was. I'm not sure why, I suppose... there was something about her I felt drawn to, like a moth to a flame, powerless to ignore, to escape... now I suppose we shall both move on. It's for the best. She's young. She has a future free from all the complications I might bring, and I'm certain she'll be happier for it. I miss her still, but the distance is bringing some clarity. I'm no good to anyone, but it is a lonely feeling... here, is this your town?"

Shaken from the other world which they seemed to have entered, one of confidences and intimacy she had barely realised she had missed, Florence turned to look out of the window. 

"...Yes. It's just up Main Street, near the end. Will you be going on tonight?"

"I... am not sure. I feel rather tired, and I'm nowhere near being able to reach Chicago tonight. Is there a hotel?"

"There is, but don't feel you have to stay there. The least I can do is offer you a room for the night in return for saving me from the bus strike? That way we will both have saved each other the cost of a hotel. Oh, here it is, thank you."

Carol pulled up neatly at the kerb and turned to Florence again. 

"...I... couldn't intrude on your kindness like that, although I am most grateful. It's been nice to have someone to alleviate the loneliness for a while. Please consider that payment enough."

Florence nodded slowly, hands folded in her lap over her gloves as she paused for a moment before pulling them on and reaching for the inner handle of the door. She hesitated, and then leaned over impulsively, cupping Carol's jaw with her very fingertips as she pressed a soft, sweet kiss to the woman's lips and pulled away, glancing down. 

"...Good night, Carol."

She made her way up the path, ears pricked for the sound of the engine and the car's inevitable departure into the night, but it didn't come. Her breath misted in the air as she fumbled for the door key and unlocked it, glancing back over her shoulder to find Carol standing on the path behind her, suitcase in hand and a high blush on her cheeks, her expression uncertain, though hope was fragile in her eyes. 

"...I suppose, if you were really certain I wouldn't be an utter inconvenience?"

Florence smiled warmly and opened the door, standing aside to usher her guest in first. 

"...Not at all."

"Just for the one night, of course."

"Of course. Things might look brighter in the morning."


End file.
